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The Road to Life is not Easy

My friend Michael was a forty one year Episcopal priest and University of Oklahoma Chaplain. He was a wonderful man, full of life, deep caring for all people and a passion for the work of justice. A week ago Friday, he had promised his eighteen year old son that he would come watch him in his second to last football game as a High School Senior. Matthew and Andrew lived an hour north from their dad, with their mother in Enid and Michael would make multiple trips up to be with his beloved boys. But that Friday night, Michael never made it to the game.

Saturday, all day, his wife, Kelly, who had traveled to New Orleans on business tried to reach him, but to no avail. She flew home early Sunday frantic about Michael’s where about. No one had seen or heard from him since Friday night. Kelly checked the messages and there was nothing from him. There was a message, however, from the State Police saying that there had been an emergency and to call them at them as soon as possible. When she did so, the gruesome reality of Michael’s fate was unveiled.

Michael had arrived in Enid, but had gone to Walmart instead of the game, where he purchased a shot gun. He then drove twelve miles north of town into a farm field, wrote a love letter to his sons and wife and shot himself in the head.

Word spread all over the US to people who had known and loved Michael, from Baltimore, MD to Seattle WA, were stunned and rode the wave of uncontrollable weeping and rage.

None of us ever imagined Michael would do such a thing, though some of us knew he suffered with some depression. He always had a deep compassion for others and would not have ever wanted to create the pain he had just heaped upon countless people. We thought he was ever so happy in his new marriage of three years, as a dad with his sons and in his ever growing ministry on the campus of OU.

I cannot attempt to explain why he did what he did. I don’t know what difference the ‘why’ of what he did would make to any of us, whether we knew him or not. But I do want to talk to you today about our life in God in a way that will never make you or anyone you love face the horror of such decisions and actions.

Sisters and Brothers, pain and suffering are often at the root of suicide. We want to run from pain and avoid suffering. We have a culture that would suggest suffering is bad and should be avoided at all costs. But suffering and pain are from God. Suffering comes with living, loving and with dying. When we run from pain and suffering, we run from life and we cannot be living in faith. Jesus entered into human suffering and walked with us through everything human beings might bear of emotional, spiritual and physical pain. He knew rejection, betrayal, humiliation and abandonment. He knew a horrible and excruciating death. Though he did not invite these things, he accepted them as a consequence of choosing life and love. He was a teacher of compassion, a word that means to suffer with.

If we live by faith, if we choose love and life, we choose suffering too. But God tells us to ‘choose life’ and Jesus tells us to “Follow Me”.

To choose Life we must practice an attitude of gratitude. Paul tells us “in all things we are to give thanks to God, for it is God’s will concerning us.” It is God’s will that we give thanks for the gift of life and love in all of its joys and sorrows, in all of its ups and downs, in all of its pain and suffering. We hurt in life because we feel. We hurt because we love. We cannot have one without the other. And this is the very essence of being fully alive… to love and to feel.

I give thanks to God for the deep deep pain I feel in the loss of my brother, Michael. I loved him and he touched my life. I will miss him so very much. Thank God I am not indifferent to his death.

There are dark moments in all our lives, things we regret, things that wounded us, things we cannot fix and think we cannot face. And yet, we have even these things as gifts, if we let them be. They teach us compassion, mercy and appreciation if we allow them. What better person to walk with a parent who has lost a child than another who has shared that agony. The pain we know can be used for good or it can harden us and make us bitter. We are alive in God when we can take the bitter things of life and transform them into good. And when we do that we can say thank you in all things.

The more we say ‘Thank you’ in each day, the more we will treasure the wonder of life and endure hardship. Life is Good! God is good… all the time! Say it! Believe it! Live it!

Be forgiving, friends! Be forgiving. When we cannot let go of hate, hurt and anger, we poison our own souls. Think about how knotted up you feel physically and mentally when you hang on to hate and anger. It is like a cancer that consumes your heart and mind. Forgiveness is a very hard thing, but nothing brings more relief. Forgiving someone who has wronged us or someone we love is one of the greatest challenges we face in life. And perhaps the greatest of all is forgiving ourselves. It is in God’s grace and goodness that we must find the power and the will to forgive. If God can forgive what they have done, what I have done… And God does… how can we do less? Like the Prodigal Son and the Unforgiving brother in Luke’s parable, we are all received unconditionally over and over again. This is the mercy, the love and the grace of God. And we will know the healing power of love and forgiveness as we offer it to others and indeed to ourselves. The deepest darkness in our lives is often not living into God’s forgiveness and instead carry that which another did, or we did as a demon on our backs and in our hearts.

Lastly, but not least, live generous lives. Be kind to yourself and others. As the Prayer of St. Francis tells us, “IT is in giving that we receive.” Give your love, your life, your time, your talent to God and to others. Be there for them so that they do not feel fearful and alone. Be there with others, so that you do not feel fearful and alone. Choose life, by choosing love… love of God, love of self and love of other. Choose life by taking care of yourself and others. Give yourself what you need.

Take your medications, your anti-depressants. Do not stop unless your doctor or psychologist tells you to stop. Take your heart meds, your insulin. Take exercise and get plenty of rest. Pray without ceasing… living every moment mindful of God’s presence and love for you and grateful for the awe and wonder of life. Play every day. Dance and laugh. It is no accident that recreation is ‘re creation’, for it is in playing and dancing, in nature and music that we are made new. In being made new, we are more able to care for ourselves and others in their cry for help.

Jesus is our example. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. When we follow him, we do not fear pain and suffering, we do not fear the dark night. When we follow him we see in our lives a door to fullness of life. We will not be consumed by the toxins of hatred and anger turned inward or outward when we love and forgive ourselves as Jesus did. We will learn to live by faith and not by fear, out of hope and not by despair.

Our life in God calls us to accept suffering and pain as a real part of journey. It calls on us to see in hardships, lessons to be learned and growth to be gained. And to give thanks for the air we breathe and for the beauty and wonder of life. Love more, forgive more and judge less yourself and others. Reach out to others and care for yourself with the same love… God’s love.

Do these things and I can assure you that you will never ever bring the grief on family and friends that Michael brought upon us. Live these things and you will know the Way of God. Learn and practice these things and you will be agents of healing in your own life and in the world around you.

God tells us to “Choose Life”
Jesus tells us to “Follow Me”
And God’s People say “Amen”